Social Media, Mobile Marketing and Your Website: Closing the Deal

With the introduction of mobile marketing and the hoopla surrounding social media, what are you to do about your existing corporate website? The answer is probably more simple than you know: adhere to the principles that create a positive website experience while integrating your existing web platform with new technologies. Do not lose focus on your product and service benefits to appease the social media gods: you'll end up losing both existing and new customers. Here are a couple of focal points for your ad campaign:

First: Ensure your website conveys your message in a short amount of time directly to the consumer. If you spend your money on mobile marketing and social media to drive traffic to your website, and then the website is not efficient with the message, you're going to lose customers – fast. Quick and concise message delivery is crucial to including a high conversion rate and successful customer acquisition and retention.

Second: Retention is key, but recruitment is the lifeblood of any business. Ensure what you offer your customer is clear and concise along all advertising medium: nothing is worse than spending thousands on a pay per click / social media campaign and driving all the traffic to your HOMEpage. I can not tell you the number of times I've seen businesses make this error resulting in lost clients and decreasing ROI. Deliver a concise AND consistent message across your entire advertising medium from cradle to commitment action. Do not lose the client on superfluous messaging!

Third: Be prepared. Is your website platform mobile-media compatible? By 2013 (Forrester Research) more users will be conducting searches from mobile devices that from desktop PC's. This means that the traffic you drive from your advertising campaigns will likely be from a mobile media smart device. Is your current web platform ready to accept those customers? Is your advertising messages and customer benefit ready to be delivered in short concise phrases? These are some of the topics that should be addressed now, rather than 12 months from now. Do not underestimate the intelligence of the average consumer!

These are just a couple of simple ideas to increase your customer retention and improve your bottom line. Remember: customers are not stupid, but they need to be helped upon arrival to your website. Your advertising has achieved a partial goal of getting them to your product, and it rests on the effectiveness of your website to complete the transaction.